Park Tool SG-6 Saw Guide & SAW-1 Hacksaw [Rider Review]

Our "Rider Review" article series features the honest reviews from verified purchasers of Worldwide Cyclery. They contain the photos, thoughts, feedback & overall review you are looking for.

Park Tool loves to make your life easier when you're throwing a wrench on your bike. They offer very specific tools to make a job easier such as the Threadless Saw Guide. Our friend, Forrest, got their hands on one. See what they think!

Overview

Why a Park Tool Hacksaw & Saw Guide?
While you may be saying I could have bought a cheaper hacksaw and saved $10, most don’t come with a blade for cutting metal. Those are only a few bucks, so in the end I probably spent $5 more than I could have.

As for the guide, there are some cheap ones out there, but I ran into three issues.

Shipping was going to take forever for some, and the cost brought it up to be the same as the Park Tool guide.
Others did not adjust to work on both a steerer tube and handlebars.
Some would just not work very well on a steerer tube.

While this can all be done without a specific guide, I wanted straight cuts and I imagine I’ll use both of these tools in the future.

Cutting the Handlebars
This is relatively straightforward, and a “measure twice, cut once” job. (Park Tools has a video & write up on cutting bike handlebars.) In my case, I wanted the bars to be 760mm wide, so I took 20mm off each side. I had already adjusted the grips so she could ride it some at that width before we cut the bars.

The guide easily fits the bars. While it is designed to clamp into a vice, I don’t have a vice and it worked fine without it. I do have a few recommendations:

Fully remove your grips and anything else on the bars. I did leave the bars on the bike.
Metal shavings will pile up and fall out. I set mine up to fall into a drain pain and was able to vacuum up the rest on the bars.
Take your time and note that the blade is designed to cut when you push, not when you pull.
While you can do this without a guide, I wanted a flush surface and have the end caps seat properly.

Cutting the Steerer Tube
Plenty of people will say to just use a stem as a guide. I didn’t have a stem I wanted to get scuffed up. Also, someone did this on my fork before I got it, and the uneven cut has been annoying to work with. On this new fork, I wanted it to be in better shape.

I did fully remove the fork from the bike, including the brake. The last thing I wanted was little metal filings to fall down into the headset or the brakes.

The guide does exactly as intended, allowing for a straight cut.

While I did do some work to determine the length of steerer tube I wanted for this bike, I also wanted to make sure it wasn’t too short to hinder resale, so I kept it at 7.25”.

Final Thoughts

The Park Tool SG-6 Threadless Saw Guide is very well built with nearly all of the pieces being replaceable, which is handy because if you wear down the shim you can replace it for just a few bucks rather than buying a whole new saw guide. You can also buy the individual parts that make up the difference between this and the SG-8 - the version of this guide for cutting carbon bars.

The Park Tool SAW-1 Hacksaw is a great tool to pair with the saw guide. The grip on the saw is comfortable, and the blade works well. Overall it’s pretty straightforward and not dramatically different than other hacksaws. Well, other than being blue.